


Ophelia

by baiqiaopei



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Action, Angst, Depression, Detectives, Drama, F/F, Fantasy, Friendship, Gen, Happy Ending, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Magic, Memory Loss, Minor Character Death, Out of Character, Romance, Routine, Secrets, Werewolves, Witches, Wizards
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-25
Updated: 2020-04-08
Packaged: 2021-03-01 05:15:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23309758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/baiqiaopei/pseuds/baiqiaopei
Summary: Overall, we have murders, intrigue, investigations, her Auror Majesty Pansy Parkinson, her Doberman and his favorite breakfast “Crusty fish”, boggarts in the closets, skeletons in the cupboards and a crime TV show every Sunday. Featuring drama, Shakespeare, major memory loss and friendship you’ve always dreamed of./”Ophelia?”//”I’m waiting for your orders.”/For:Let’s meet at the pear painting and go steal some vegan eclairs, shall we? It’s close to you anyway, so stop whining.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter
Comments: 2
Kudos: 8





	1. Prologue. The dust of the Victory

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Офелия](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/571834) by https://ficbook.net/authors/132627. 



> Oh, Ophelia, you've been on my mind since the flood  
> Oh, Ophelia, Heaven help the fool who falls in love
> 
> The Lumineers — Ophelia
> 
> Translator's disclaimer:
> 
> As you might already know English is not my native language and I am not a professional translator. I do that for fun because I love reading and want to share good works with you guys :) Please kindly tell me if you find any inaccuracy in the text! I will do my best to make it better. Hopefully, the chapters will be uploaded regularly until I catch up with the author.
> 
> Now, please, enjoy!~

Hermione Granger's hand was warm and slightly wet because of all the nervousness as she was dragging Harry Potter through a river of wizards, who filled the streets of London with pure joy similar to madness. The Department of Magical Law Enforcement gave it all to try and suppress the crowd of wizards and witches, to stop them on their way to the center of the capital of Great Britain, but from time to time here and there there were fireworks that no muggle could ever have seen before. It was pointless at this point to even try and do something about “weird looking people in colorful robes” that were seen on every other TV channel and newspaper.

No one could stop people from celebrating the victory over the Dark Wizard.

Harry could feel that Ron was hardly keeping up with their pace, he felt it when his friend caught his hood. He held on even more tightly to Hermione’s hand, the girl looked back at him with a happy yet exhausted look on her face. The crowd tried to bury Ron alive in the pile of bodies, so Harry used his free hand to pull his friend to the front, making it a bit easier to get through the crowd.

Just a few minutes ago they had apparated to one of the expectedly silent corners of the Diagon Alley and had immediately been squeezed with bodies, loud music, dancing, and joy. They’d better hurry until someone noticed their presence and made it an even bigger deal.

Harry could swear he heard Ron’s sigh of relief when they could finally notice the Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes. They were practically running those few meters when they heard one of the people noticing Harry.

“Potter!”

“It’s Harry Potter!”

The voices got muffed behind the closed doors and Hermione’s spell. Some particularly nosy guys tried to peek through the windows, but she has closed the curtains as well.

“Phew, we made it,” Ron exhaled, wiping real sweat off his forehead. “Where do those guys even get the power for partying? I found it hard to get up today.”

“You always find it hard to get up, Ronald.” Hermione put her wand back.

“Well yeah, you’re totally right.”

They looked around. The shop was covered with dust, all the surfaces flat or curved. The spiderweb was prominent, hanging between the ceiling and the ladders full of toys; the shelves full of various magical crap looked abandoned. Harry could feel a draining pull of anguish by merely looking at them, and it took him a moment to reign on his own emotions. He promised himself to fully indulge it later, though.

It wasn’t a secret to any of them why the shop that used to flourish and fill people with laughter was now drowning in sorrow and dust. The reason was imprinted on the dusty wooden floor as footprints that were leading up to the brothers’ study. The brothers, who not so long ago were responsible for all the magic that this place had held. There was only one pair of footprints there now.

Ron went eerily silent, and Harry noticed Hermione taking the boy’s hand. They headed towards the staircase. There was no sound in the shop but their steps and soft creaks of floorboards. Toys were hanging from the ceiling, twirling lightly at the movement of the air. Harry was closing their morose procession, and he could feel the anguish creeping and taking over him like a flood.

They stopped at an indiscernible door on the upper plateau. The footprints were leading behind that door, into the study. Hermione clenched her fist and awkwardly lifted it to knock at the wood.

“George?” There was no answer. Hermione waited a couple of seconds and knocked again. “George, it’s just us here. Can… Can we come in?”

She seemed to be unsure what to do as she stepped aside and looked at Ron helplessly. He swallowed and reached for the doorknob. The lock gave in easily with a silent click, and the door opened with a creak. They peeked inside, feeling wary and alarmed with no visible reason. Harry caught a thought at the back of his mind, that there might be a vase or any other object to be thrown at them from the corner of the room.

But it was much, much simpler. And much more grievous. George was sitting at his brother’s desk with his head dropped to his hands, surrounded by chaos. His own desk was knocked over, pressing over the books, weird-looking schemes and blueprints, cups and Merlin knows what else. The floor was covered with paper, broken bottles and their smithers, and broken toys.

The only place in the study that was untouched was Fred’s desk. It looked as if it was Fred himself who sat there, tired and resting his head on the blueprints, halfway through creating another barking rattle for babies with irresponsible parents.

Harry’s heart sank at this sight, and let the anguish in at last, not willing to wait for the evening to come to drown in sorrow. The losses were too great, the casualties too heavy for those who managed to survive. Potter tried to breathe, inhale then exhale, and couldn’t dare admit that he was waiting, too, for his chest to give up its last breath. He was positive that if soon enough there won’t be any kind of business to distract him and for him to fully immerse, he would end up here, next to George, breaking and bringing back together toys that once used to bring laughter and joy.

Hermione crouched to examine the glass scattered on the floor and picked up a tiny whirligig that was supposed to draw incredible traceries by spinning. She gave the toy a small spin only to make sure that it will never glimmer again. Then she stood up, hiding the toy into her pocket. Ron was making his way toward George, who gave no vital signs. The boy stepped carefully, trying not to break anything else. As if the mess could have been made somehow worse by sloppy steps.

“Georgie? George, it’s me, Ron.” He shook his brother’s shoulders but got no reaction. Ron made a sullen grimace and reached somewhere under the desk to take out an empty bottle of firewhisky. “Bollocks, there are three of these down there. He couldn’t have downed them in one go, could he?”

“I hope not.” Harry approached the desk, too, and placed two fingers to George’s neck. “Pulse is normal, but if he has three bottles of firewhisky in him, it might not be for long.”

“Bollocks,” Ron repeated, crouching and retrieving other bottles from under the desk. He placed them on the top. “What are we supposed to do then?”

Hermione warily took some books and papers off the nearest chair and put them down to the floor, then sitting into the cleared space with her hands under her hips. It wasn’t chilling cold in the study, so Harry concluded that she was merely feeling uncomfortable, which was relatable. He felt a growing temptation to lie down on top of the pile of garbage and search for the unopened bottles of whiskey.

“What did your mom say, Ron? Before you left.”

“George didn’t appear back home for a couple of days, and we were kinda worried, but then this wild happiness burst out on the streets.” Ron scratched his nape. “Mom got frantic that he might get lost in the crowd. And he’s here.”

“And he’s here.” Hermione echoed with a sigh.

Harry tried to concentrate. He looked at the framed moving photographs of the Weasley family and their friends that were hung on the walls. They were all red-haired, smiling and laughing, looking back at him. Covered with dust. Not real. The real George didn’t dare cast as much as a glimpse on them and was slowly drinking himself to death and banging his head against the desk.

“Well, we can’t leave him here,” Harry said in a matter of fact voice, looking back at his friends. “We have to take him to the Burrow. To Mrs. Weasley. I don’t think Mungo can afford to take him in today.”

“True,” Hermione mumbled as she got up from her seat. “First it would be great to heal all the broken legs after the parade.”

“I bet you can’t apparate from here,” Ron noticed. He assessed George as if trying to calculate the approximate weight of the guy. “We might have to levitate him downstairs first and apparate to the Burrow from the entrance.

“Sounds like a plan to me,” Harry agreed. “Who’s gonna perform the charm?”

“Let me do it.” Hermione retrieved her wand, ready to cast the spell. She frowned, pointing her wand at George when Ron slightly lifted him from the chair. “ _ Levicorpus! _ ”

The body was hoisted up into the air, bent weirdly, moved by the witch’s stable hand. Hermione strolled towards the exit backward, with her hand still up, and Harry hurried to open the door for her. The four of them left the study. Ron looked over the mess one last time and closed the door shut behind them, leaving the photographs to smile into nothing from their dusty frames.

Hermione’s hand was slightly trembling while she levitated George downstairs, his head thrown limply back, still unconscious. Harry noticed that he had huge violet eye bags, which were especially prominent next to the red hair even if it had lost its vibrancy. They were all used to George not having one ear, but for some reason, Harry had an uncomfortable feeling of a fresh wound from looking at it. Perhaps, it was because the body was numb and senseless.

They wouldn’t know, but at that moment the three of them shared one feeling: loneliness. They descended the dusty creaking staircase, surrounded by toys that looked more like cocoons, dancing in the air to a mute tune of valse. They didn’t think of how their procession resembled the one of a funeral. Outside, under a clear blue sky, thousands and thousands of wizards were gathered all together to celebrate the victory over evil, the victory of light. Only in this wooden coffin in the very heart of overall happiness, there lay what was behind that victory. There, among gifts and laughter, three suffered loss. And everyone else who was mourning and burying their beloved ones in similar crypts, they suffered loss, too.

The staircase was passed, Ron sneezed for the fourth time that day and Hermione lowered her wand. Harry caught George by his shoulders, careful not to let him fall. Ron embraced his brother from the other side. George’s head was still limp, his face hidden behind dirty hair.

“I’ll apparate with him,” Ron said stiffly. “From the porch. We have to be quick so that the locals won’t notice, otherwise, the gossip will follow us to the very Ireland.”

“Then I’ll open the door, you leave.” Hermione immediately pointed at the entrance and opened the door with a spell.

Harry and Ron dragged George closer to the exit, and Potter let go of the brothers, moving back to Hermione’s side.

“You ready?”

“Yep. See you in the Burrow.”

Hermione opened one of the two parts of the gate just wide enough to let Ron step outside and disappear in the thin air at once. It seemed that no soul outside even noticed the door of the Weasleys’ Wizard Whizzes opening and closing right away.

Harry and Hermione looked at each other confusedly. They stood still until the girl nervously looked round to check if they might be seen.

“We have to go, too,” she said calmly. “I don’t know the exact place Ronald apparated to, but if he accidentally landed into the swamp next to the Burrow it’s high time we think they both are half drowning.”

“I think he made it,” Harry shook his head and looked over the curtains. “You go now, I’ll handle the door.”

“Fine.”

She followed the same path Ron did a few moments ago and hesitated next to the door. She hugged herself and turned round to look at Harry. If he had seen such an expression on his friend’s face before he would have been seriously worried. But now, when they were standing in the middle of abandoned Fred and George’s shop, he was already far too familiar with the look. He had been seeing the same one every day in the mirror with a green copper frame that hung in his bathroom, back home at the Grimmauld Place. He had seen it on Molly Weasley’s face when she was looking through the window at the endless fields that surrounded the Burrow. He had seen it on Nevill’s face when the boy hugged his grandma — she was crying both happily and woefully. He had seen it on the Hogwarts’ professors’ faces when they were bringing the school’s walls back stone by stone.

And he was seeing it now on Hermione’s face when she was staying before him and was probably utterly confused and unsure of what the future holds for them all.

“I have to admit, I can’t even imagine what is going to happen to us all, Harry.” She confirmed his guess.

He looked blankly at his sneakers that were now drowned in dust and slowly nodded in agreement.

“Neither can I.”

“Do you think we’ll get it later?”

Harry watched her as he tried to remember when was the last time they gathered all together. Not for their friends’ funeral, not for a charity evening to gather money for those who suffered from the war, not for the memorial. When was the last time the Burrow’s stuffy kitchen was filled with laughter and popping fireworks? For Harry, it felt like another life.

Perhaps it was. Their lives have changed forever. Harry staggered towards the door and gave Hermione a tight hug. She drew out a shaky breath as if she was about to cry in his shoulder.

“I can’t promise you that it’ll be fine, Hermione,” he said, feeling his friend’s hair tickling his face. “But I do know that there’ll be a time when we all will feel better. We just need some time.”

“Some time,” she echoed quietly and pulled back. Her eyes were red, but Harry showed no signs of noticing that. “You’re right. We’ve got to go now. Ron’s probably drowned in a swamp by now.”

Harry let go of his friend’s shoulders with a soft chuckle. He stepped aside, preparing himself to close the door after the girl leaves.

“Go.”

Potter opened the door with a light hand movement and closed it as soon as Hermione vanished at the porch in a whirlwind of apparation. He couldn’t dare move for a couple of seconds, watching the dust float in the air. His eyes caught the curtains that Hermione’s pulled to cover the windows. There were thin lines of sunlight going through them. He pulled one curtain aside and looked outside.

There, in sunny daylight, vibrant robes filled the streets, magical confetti flickered through the air and music was loud and gleeful. Harry noticed a couple of familiar faces in the crowd and was glad no one can see him. He knew all too well, that in the next few months or even years he will have to shake multiple hands, hug mothers who have lost their relatives and watch the kids grow up without parents because they died in a war for peace.

He was watching the happy faces and colorful dragons and birds up in the air when he suddenly saw him. Draco Malfoy was at the other end of the street. He didn’t look like he was going to take part in a parade, on the contrary, he looked as if he was there by pure accident, merely apparated in an inconvenient place that’s all, just like Harry and his friends did not so long ago.

He was wearing a simple black cloak, and a white collar was visible under it. His messy fair hair glistened under the sunlight from under the hood when he staggered forward. He clearly hadn’t been expecting such a large crowd of people to be there. Fortunately, none of them paid much attention to their surroundings. Draco had a familiar condescending look on his face, but at the same time he looked so exhausted, he might have not been sleeping even two hours per day for the last few weeks. Harry wouldn’t be surprised if that was the case, honestly.

Malfoy leaned on a brick wall of a narrow street to the opposite of a shop. He must be hoping to wait until there are fewer people around. Harry could only guess what was the former Death Eater thinking about now, hiding awkwardly in a crowd of those who celebrated the victory against him.

Why did he even apparate there? He risked being cursed.

Harry Potter stood there behind a window in an abandoned shop and watched his school rival standing with his eyes closed in a colorful gleeful mob of wizards. He felt a strange urge to approach him yet was too scared to actually do so. To scoop up people, who scurried back and forth, to cross the street, to overcome the anger in the other’s eyes, and to tell him, Draco, that he does not blame him for anything. To reach out and be ready for his hand to be bitten off with no second thought.

To say sorry and to get a punch in the face. Only Merlin knows how much Harry needed that punch right now. He didn’t know why. But his guts told him that it might help, might sober him up. The physical pain might overpower the mental one, but it was a path far too dangerous and slippery.

Harry acted on that pull without thinking. He moved to the exit of the Weasleys’ shop, opened the door and stepped out on the porch, indulging in the sunlight, the vibrancy of the streets, robes and the sky. He didn’t plan to apparate. He just froze there on the highest step of the staircase, a bit higher than all the people, and he looked to the further end of the street, where Draco Malfoy stood still against the red brick wall with his eyes closed.

Suddenly, the boy pulled his head from the wall and looked directly back at him. Potter thought, that if his legs really give up now and he falls onto the cold pavement and will never see the daylight ever again, he won’t even regret it.

But he stood there, frozen, and stared back at Malfoy, who was equally frozen in place, and whose gaze was hard to catch behind tall wizarding hats.

Harry mustered up his courage at last and started to get through the bodies to the other end of the street, but after his first step another massive hat hid his aim for a few seconds, and then Potter saw the place empty. Malfoy has apparated.

Harry blinked in confusion, startled, and stopped. That drew attention to his figure, and a few people looked at him excitedly and approached him with cheerful exclamations to shake his hand. Disoriented, Harry managed to wave to the people that surrounded him and apparated to the Burrow, where Hermione and the Weasleys were waiting for him.

These few moments lasted as long as a few hours, but then he found himself at the edge of the Burrow’s apparation zone, slightly dizzy. The Burrow stood there before his eyes, and its curvy roof seemed to touch the sky itself. There was some kind of fuss at the porch, and Harry rushed there through a green lawn. He tried to forget the Diagon Alley and the guy he saw there.

On the porch, there was Ron and Hermione, who used her wand to water the laughing boy. At a closer look, Harry could notice that Ron’s lower body (starting from his chest) was stained with mud and slush.

“I can’t believe it, Ronald, I merely can’t believe it!” Ron, soaked in water, laughed and tried to dodge another jet that Hermione sent towards him. He saw Harry and ran down from the porch to hide behind his friend, and Hermione, who didn’t expect it, doused Potter with water from head to toe. She gasped in surprise immediately, though. “Merlin, Harry, sorry! Ronald had apparated into the swamp after all and I was trying to wash him up,” she mumbled as she went downstairs as well. “George ended up in the bod, too, but the cold water woke him up, so Mrs. Weasley told him to go shower.”

Harry stood there on the lawn and tried to catch his breath. He resembled a fish on the shore a lot, which made Ron laugh hysterically behind his back until he almost fell. First seconds Harry was about to start remembering every Hagrid’s Blast-Ended Skrewt in utter confusion, but then he saw Hermione smile in that very cherished way. He hadn’t seen this smile in ages. Harry heard Ron falling onto the grass, still laughing, and he started smiling, too, raising his wand and casting a flow of water towards Hermione, who was still fully dry.

She squeaked and hid her face with her hands, but didn’t let go of her wand. The revenge was quick to follow, and a whole waterfall fell onto Harry, making him almost slip on the grass and fall onto Ron.

They didn’t think of it while running around after one another, trying to make the wet and slippery green grass even more soaked in water. Later, when he was changing into dry clothes Ron gave him, Harry realized that for the first time in a long while they were genuinely happy and weren’t bothered by thoughts of what had happened and what is yet to come for them. They were the children, who survived the war and were granted an opportunity to live. They had to use it wisely.


	2. Auror Headquarters, cubicle number four

On the desk, there was a sign with a caption that said ‘R. Weasley’ and a radio that was currently muttering all the gossip of the last few days. Harry Potter could hear something about Kourtney Briggs getting married for the fourth time, as he tried to gather his thoughts. He stared at the corkboard with papers of various colors and sizes pinned to it and tried to make sense out of all this mess. Something didn’t let his brain focus, concentrate on what’s important — was it another marriage of a celebrity or the sound of a muggle coffee machine — which George charmed to work without electricity and be able to be bent ten times and taken camping — making very nasty brew instead of real coffee.

A girl in sunglasses was busy pretending she’s not asleep. Her hair was black and styled in a bob, and she snored without noticing it, leaning onto the wall in her chair, the furniture dangerously standing on just two legs. She was wearing massive black boots that were now visible because her feet were both on the desktop, next to the sign captured with ‘P. Parkinson’ and a piece of paper speaking ‘Fuck Off’ in messy handwriting. Her desk, to the contrary of the one of Ron’s, was almost empty, just a few of the neatly organized stationery and a miniature Doberman there. The dog was sleeping, much like its master, with its head still on its crossed legs. Next to the desk, there were two bowls.

Ron cursed again from behind piles of paper, rattling the documents and with that burying the poor radio further. The broadcaster notified the listeners that it is time for the music compilation, and the radio began playing  _ ‘the Witches of the 37th St.’ _ that everyone has been sick and tired of by now. The sounds were muffled with Ron’s papers, though.

Potter lifted his glasses and bulked it on top of his head. He rubbed his eyes, hoping for some sort of epiphany to visit him. The windows — charmed to broadcast different weather each day — seemed to mock the whole Auror Office, showing soft pastel blue sky and swallows flying by.

In London, it was raining cats and dogs for three days already. Harry glared at the closest to him window and pointed his wand at it. The blinds fell with a loud clatter. Ron looked at him from behind the papers.

“‘Sup, mate?”

“Nothin’,” Harry grumbled and looked back at the board. The documents and photographs hanging there were matched with red lines hanging merely an inch above the surface. “What about your reports?”

“Alright, roger, I’ll shut up now.”

There had been shouting and heated arguments that had never reached compromise all morning in the next cubicle. The group number three that worked there was trying to catch dealers of some muggle drug mixed with some slop of unknown origin. Harry glanced at an empty table of their former partner who had resigned a month ago after a nasty incident with a ricocheted jinx. Their group number four has been incomplete since then, the fifth Auror was a vital necessity. He used to be the older and the most experienced of them all, and Harry wistfully thought that that guy would have found the clue momentarily, and their whole group would have solved the case of forged biting toasters a week ago. There would be newbies coming after Christmas, but the memories of their first month in the Auror Office were vivid in Harry’s mind — the two of them had been as useful as potato sacks. Ron used to whine to Hermione every other evening, complaining about their whole service being catching curses on their heads.

“Ron, it’s about time for the news,” Harry said looking at the clock.

“Oh, right.”

Weasley dug up the radio from its paper grave, dropping his quill to the floor and beginning to search for the muggle’s radio wave with a few light taps of his wand on the antenna. It was a tradition of theirs — to listen to the muggles’ crime news every Monday and Thursday. Pansy fancied stories about stupid muggles killing each other with spoons and aubergines, and she burst out laughing without fail after hearing such. Ron was her loyal partner in this simple entertainment.

The radio stopped hissing and was now playing a song which was reaching its end. Harry made himself another cup of hardly tolerable coffee and shook Parkinson on the shoulder to wake the girl up from her attempt to compensate for the lack of sleep after a night shift. Then Scott entered the cubicle with a thick muggles’ newspaper under his arm and softly sat at the desk next to the one where Pansy yawned. He drawled with his never-changing impassive mask:

“Have you heard the news?”

“No, what is it?”

“Muggle mayor was assassinated,” his voice remained emotionless. “Right in his jacuzzi. A bloodbath right at home.”

“Hey, you’ve spoiled us all the fun of listening to the radio today!” Ron protested. “I’ve spent ages looking for it!”

“Wait, wait, wait, Weasley.” Parkinson lifted her glasses and propped it above her hair, leaning to look into the newspaper that Scott opened on his desk. “What did you just say? Jacuzzi? What the hell’s that?”

“It’s like a huge bath with bubbles,” Harry explained, getting back to his own desk. “With bubbles and diodes.”

“Diodes are lights in jars, right?”

“Something like that, yes.” Ron snorted, adjusting the volume of the radio. The song was almost over.

Pansy kept inquiring Scott about the details of that weird machine called ‘jacuzzi’ right until the ‘UKCrimey’ started.

_ “Hello dear listeners, you are listening to ‘UKCrimey’, just as any Monday of this year precisely, I am Jacob Donner.” _

“Ew, Jacob again.” Pansy spat, irritated. “Where’s Catherina?”

“Shuddup.” Ron hissed.

The speaker kept talking:

_ “You probably are already informed of the main event of this day, being obviously the hideous homicide of our respected mayor Donovan Grace. Right in his jacuzzi in his villa in the suburbs of our capital city. As far as we know, the homicide took place yesterday evening, when the victim was alone, while his wife and daughter were on vacation in Spain. We don’t know yet if there’s an association or a single person who has committed such a horrible crime. We also don’t know how the murderer entered the house without leaving any trace at all, as the police are searching for any clues this whole morning. The mass media asked everyone to keep out of second-guessing and overthinking the incident, but should we really doubt that the motive for the murder has been the political activity of the victim and his status?” _

“Fantastic fools,” Pansy huffed again, leaning back on her chair. The ears of her dog perked as Doberman, who was not taller than a coffee cup, carefully watched his master’s every move. “Do muggles really have no protection? Not even spells, but people. No one is guarding her royal majesty, too?”

“I think there are people,” Scott replied, eyes fixed on the newspaper. He tried to skim through it and find something useful for their investigation. “Perhaps those three tiny dogs of the Queen are animagi?”

“Not that glamorous of a job, I’d say,” Ron remarked from behind his paper pile.

“Agreed.”

Meanwhile, Jacob has mentioned every possible outcome of the mayor’s murder’s investigation, and continued:

_ “Off to the other events. Next to the town of Keswick, Northern England, a local farmer has found his twenty sheep massacred this morning. He accuses Satanists, who, according to his words, moved into the town a while ago.”  _ Ron and Pansy laughed simultaneously.  _ “There is no evidence of any group of people involved in the animal massacre, but the local police will take care of this case.” _

Scott stopped cutting the paper into long lines.

“Satanists! Why do they always accuse Satanists?”

“Most likely a stereotype,” Harry explained, and that made all his colleagues turn their heads in his direction. “Whenever muggles find a field full of corpses, they think it’s an offering, immolation. There’s a lot of blood and stuff.”

“You mean,” Pansy concluded with a look of doubt on her face, not paying Jacob any attention, the speaker now telling the listeners about some old lady’s death in a supermarket. “They invented a bubble bath with no spells, but they see dark magic in killing sheep? This program only proves the absurd of humanity itself.”

Harry agreed wholeheartedly. They’ve listened to the end of the program, and Scott found a suspicious announcement in the newspaper. They decided to check out the telephone number at the end, and when their suspicion was confirmed, Harry added some new papers to his board. Ron and he had a nice run from the Auror Office to the finally found warehouse of forged biting toasters of the last model, and Pansy drank another three cups of coffee.

By the evening they have closed the case, Ronald put his  _ ‘Festive Cap of Solved Cases’ _ , Scott handed in their reports for verification and to the archive, and they headed back to their own homes.

Watching how Pansy enlarges her desk dog right in front of his eyes for the hundredth time, how she puts the collar and the leash onto her now huge Doberman, how she leaves the cubicle with a short ‘bye’ and keeps arguing with Jess from the group number seven about why would you make the toasters bite, Harry thought that he sure does love his job.

***

Hermione was telling about her day at work while patting Crookshanks sitting in her lap. The cat’s fur looked more like a sponge in many parts of his body, he wasn’t getting any younger. Every other minute he’d dig his claws into the woman’s skin as a reminder not to stop patting him. They were sitting in an armchair that was probably a witness of the very Merlin’s butt and was covered in patches.

Hermione has been working in a private magical hospital for two years now. She studied for one more year after Harry and Ron had become Aurors. Ron often complained about how they had been training to become good targets for dark wizards while Hermione had been studying the real thing.

“In the end, I told him there’s no point in telling me the things that I already know for the hundredth time, but this nonsense of a person was onto me for the rest of the day.” She sighed and looked at Harry and then back at her cat. “I’m tired enough without any other lectures that my colleagues are so eager to give out, is that so hard to understand?”

“Well,” Harry started awkwardly, listening to Ron rummaging in the kitchen, making tea for them all. “That sounds awful, but this guy probably just doesn’t know other ways of making a girl interested.”

Hermione grimaced unhappily at his words.

“I know, Harry, but I have no desire for this to become yet another one of my concerns.” She looked rather wistfully in the kitchen direction, her hand patting Crookshanks mechanically, and added softly: “I can’t keep my mind off work since I’ve started studying. It’s probably for the best.”

Harry traced her eyes and saw Ron in the doorway. He was levitating three cups of tea and a box of cookies. Harry was internally glad that they had to finish their dialogue.

Weasley flopped onto the next armchair, almost spilling their tea, and asked:

“Well, how is the best healer of Great Britain doing?”

“No idea,” Hermione replied, slurping her tea. “Madam Pomfrey retired as far as I remember.”

“Well, then how is our healer Granger doing?”

Hermione frowned for a second, as if trying to remember something, and then exclaimed:

“Oh, we’ve got a wizard today; he was robbed and the robber hit his head with a kettle in the process, and the kettle spout got stuck in the poor guy’s nape.” She finished her simple story with a beaming smile, but then looked down awkwardly and reassured her friends, that “He’s fine, but the four of us had to take that kettle out!”

Harry looked at Ron’s pale face with freckles the color of fuchsia.

“Has it ever occurred to you that Parkinson would have sold her soul for Hermione’s stories?”

***

Two weeks later Great Britain’s crime news’ speaker was Catherine Daillier, to Pansy’s delight. The radio volume was increased a few decibels for this occasion.

_ “Good November morning, dear listeners. This is ‘UKCrimey’ and I am Catherine Daillier…” _

“Hullo, Catherine,” Pansy happily greeted the speaker, throwing a miniature ball for her dog around her desk. The dog was running after the ball right on the papers.

_ “Here are the most shocking news for this rainy morning. I was drinking coffee half an hour before the broadcast and could never have imagined that I would have to edit our text but that was exactly what I had to do. About fifteen minutes ago we received a message that Nathan Walls also known as the Richest Man of the United Kingdom has been shot in his office on the twentieth floor of an office building owned by the Walls family by an unknown killer. The first investigation of the murder scene has not given the police any evidence whatsoever, which confused everyone including our radio station…” _

“Screwt them all behind their collars,” Scott commented without a flinch on his face. “What’s going on out there?”

_ “The correspondents were denied any commentary, but I have to make the obvious question audible: should we connect the last week’s mayor’s assassination with the murder of one of the richest men of the country? And if we should, what should we expect next?” _

Catherine kept talking, moving on to the next highlight, but in the cubicle number four nobody dared to speak. Pansy stopped throwing the ball and stared at the wall blindly. Ron, who had got rid of his paper pile, at last, was nagging at his quill nervously. When the bubbling of the speaker was interrupted by a loud grunting of an old cleaner lamenting about the amount of bubblegum in the corridors, the four of them started. Then Harry asked from his desk.

“Do you think we should be worried?”

No one replied, as no one wanted to be the first one to admit that they should.

A few hours later, after everyone in the office has already gossiped about the news at least a thousand times, an Auror returned from the muggles’ central police office and confirmed their fears. All of them were waiting in the common break room for the Auror Jergens like a messiah who had been sent to his father, who was a policeman, to get any information. They were sitting on the couches and armchairs and personal chairs that they had to bring because there was no room left. The room was filled with hubbub as everyone was speaking, speculating on the possible outcomes.

“Don’t you know muggles? They’re killing each other so gracefully that any dark wizard would be envious. I’ve read a story once about how they couldn’t solve a case because of the staff member’s gross negligence!”

“If you say so. But that was half a century ago, nowadays they have all those mechanisms to help them do their work.”

“I agree with Benji,” Ron whispered into Harry’s ear after their neighbor’s statement about the computers. “If the muggles can’t find evidence with all that tech they’ve got, that’s most likely the evidence not of their range. It’s hard to find something of which existence you’re unaware.”

Harry nodded automatically, sitting in between Pansy and Ron, who have occupied his armchair’s hands. Scott wasn’t a fan of touching others, so he was standing next to them straight as a ramrod.

The conversation went on to the topic of a conspiracy of some unknown Masonic lodge that Auror Thornton mentioned out of the blue, and then Auror Jergens finally arrived. When he entered the room, it was obvious that his information was not too comforting. Most of them shut up anxiously, only Thornton’s buddy kept asking about that weird Masonic lodge.

“So? What is it, Jerg?”

Jergens, tall and scrawny, hesitated, struggling to find the best way to tell everyone the news.

“Well,” he swallowed. “As you all know, my father’s a policeman,” everyone knew that since Merlin was born, but nobody dared to interrupt. “He was there when they investigated the crime scene. I mean, it’s not totally confirmed,” he stuttered again. “It seems that it was, indeed, a wizard’s doing. Both times. They have literally zero clues.”

Harry expected the whole Auror Office to burst out with emotions after receiving such news, but instead, a deadly silence fell. They could even hear the cleaner Walter mumbling something about the cups next to the coffee machines at the other end of the hall. Pansy, who was sitting to Harry’s right, lifted her fingers to her nose and frowned, closing her eyes, as if she hoped for everything to get back to normal when she opened them again.

Thornton was the one to break the silence with his wits.

“Yeah, that was not Masons, that’s for sure.”

***

By Thursday they have solved a couple of little cases that didn’t require any effort of running around the streets. The unknown threat has hung like the Sword of Damocles over the whole Auror Headquarters. It was obscure and therefore looked more terrifying than it probably was in reality.

The Aurors were instructed to keep calm but were still gossiping over the news for the next few days, trying to keep their work as efficiently as possible. The cubicle number four tried not to go into the break room to stay out of the useless chat and continued working as if nothing had happened. They had a new topic to discuss. However. Most often it was brought up by Pansy, who sat closer than others to the door, and therefore was involuntarily overhearing her colleagues’ conversations.

“You know what,” she snapped on Thursday morning, casting a silence spell onto the door, as they always did whenever there was the need to discuss something. “Those primitive screw-heads get on my nerves! How long are they going to go through has or has not the Queen paid for the muggle mayor’s death? Or even better: do the Queen’s dogs get paid if they are animagi? What a kneazleshit!”

“It was me who has spread the thought of the animagi dogs,” Scott confessed, looking up from his papers. “I didn't think they’d actually take it seriously.”

“No complaints, Scott, sweetie,” Pansy reassured him. “I just can’t help but want to make them all constipated.”

“Ew, Pansy, let’s keep out without constipation for today.”

On Thursdays, there was a radio program about the most worrying events of the UK in the muggles’ radio schedule. None of the Aurors in the cubicle number four had said it out loud, but they were all worried about what they might hear today. If muggles won’t find any clues or, even worse, get more murders with no evidence, the Auror Office will have to take this case.

When it was time to turn on the radio, a few more people entered their cubicle to listen to the news. They filled the chairs and the corners of the room and froze in their places, afraid to miss a single word. Walter tried to ask from the corridor about the honey that had attracted so many flies, but has been hissed at and backed out.

They hadn’t received any news or details that Thursday, but Harry and Ron got the new victim the following Sunday when they went to visit Hermione to the flat she was renting in one of the muggles’ districts. Harry retrieved the newspaper from her mailbox. The headline was large and worrying.

_ “Attempted murder of the interim deputy mayor: Andrea Joyce claims it was a ghost.” _

The Aurors looked at each other and rushed to the lift. They updated Hermione on the last news as soon as they got to her floor. A few hours later, the three of them were convinced that another huge case is about to hit the Auror Headquarters.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well if that isn't fun. Can't wait to get to the main part but it's harder than I thought, to get the text readable.
> 
> Hope you enjoyed! Let me know if you did with comments and kudos uwu stay tuned for the next chapter <3


	3. The Ghost

Every Auror who had a day shift that Monday was there in the cubicle number four first thing in the morning to hear it firsthand. They had been talking about it non-stop in the common room in low whispers because anyone who had the slightest connection to the muggle part of London had heard about the attempted murder and by now had spread the word to the others. By the time the program started the whole cubicle resembled a beehive, anxious and rather terrified. Of course, those men and women had seen much more horrible things and looked unbothered at first glance, but it was obvious that they’re barely holding on the edge from the constant whispering, humming of the coffee machine that was working more than usual and how Pansy was nervously tapping under her desk.

They'd put the radio onto the edge of Weasley’s desk so that everyone could hear it. The Aurors anxiously waited for the last song to end. Harry dragged his chair to his friend’s desk, afraid to miss something. Pansy pushed in between three Aurors two heads taller than her and sat right on top of the papers that Ron had yet to fill. She had her miniature Doberman in her lap. The dog was busy eating a cabbage head five times larger than his own head. Scott was clearly uncomfortable in such a crowded place and kept his private space in the further corner.

The radio spoke up with a theme melody of the program, and silence fell in the room.

_ “Hello, dear listeners of the “UKCrimey”, I am Jacob Donner and I have some very exciting news from all over the kingdom. Obviously, the main event of today is the Saturday’s incident involving the interim deputy mayor miss Andrea Joyce, which took place next to the King’s Cross Station, where miss Joyce was about to take her train and head to the North…” _

Thornton yelled from where he stayed in the corridor,

“King’s Cross? No shit?!”

He was hissed at, and Ron adjusted the volume.

_ “...the reporters of a few major publishers were allowed to find out what had happened. They inquired a police officer, who happened to be there at the time of the assault and who wished to remain anonymous. He claimed that when he hurried to the victim, her face and her suit were covered with blood, so he called for the medics and the backup immediately. While he stayed to administer first aid to the victim, she kept on saying only a few words, precisely, ‘it was a ghost’. The reinforcement evacuated the passengers and the staff, secured the area and searched everywhere, but hadn’t found neither the criminal nor any cues leading to who he was…” _

“Bloody hell,” Ron whispered so quietly that only Harry could hear. They exchanged equally confused gazes.

_ “...we’ve been informed by the medics that Andrea Joyce is currently in a stable state, but will have to stay in the clinic for a little while longer. Our questions about the person the interim deputy had seen were shut down with the following explanation; the human brain can experience every sort of hallucination when stressed. We can’t assume that the ‘ghost’ murderer is merely a mask, a brand card. Some of the witnesses claimed to have seen a weirdly looking man wearing a mask in the crowd, but haven’t paid much attention to it because of the recent masquerade. So who is he, this killer in the mask?” _ Jacob concluded.  _ “Except for him being an otherworldly creature, we all are doomed to ask the same question for weeks now. What is going on? Who is bold enough to dare think he can get away with murdering the political elite of our country? And what should we expect next? There are so many questions but not so many people ready to answer them. Due to the event of last week, the social security services asked the mass media to make a brief, so in the next program you’re going to hear about how to stay aware and alarmed in a crowd, in a public place, and in your own house.” _

As soon as it was clear that the speaker won’t say anything regarding the murders anymore, the Aurors started talking all at once.

“It was definitely a wizard, most definitely.”

“Hold your hippogriffs, it’s not confirmed yet, they can’t figure it out for themselves.”

“Oh come on, it’s just some psycho with a mask and an overgrown ego. We’ve all seen revolutionary.”

“What if those are the followers of You-Know-Who?”

“Jackson, have you hit your head? Don’t even start this.”

“Why not?! Thornton suggested Masons!”

“I’d rather believe in Masons then in Death Eaters revived from their graves!”

Harry, hands together under his chin, watched as Pansy carefully put her dog and his cabbage onto the floor next to the desk, pointed her wand and pronounced the spell. The dog grew back to his usual state and finished the poor vegetable in no time after that sitting obediently next to his master’s legs.

“Bark, honey,” Pansy commanded firmly, and the Doberman barked immediately so loudly that the walls seemed to shake. The Aurors startled and turned to look at the dog.

“Parkinson, your crazy dog again,” someone murmured, and everyone made their way out of the cubicle.

“Yes, my crazy dog, and his name is Sweetheart,” Pansy got her nose up; Sweetheart scowled but didn’t move. “And he loves to bite the wizards’ asses off.”

After this phrase, the Aurors rushed to the exit even more excitedly, and soon enough in the cubicle number four, there were only four of them plus Sweetheart, who let everyone pat his head.

“I’m sure Robards is gonna send one of us to visit that King’s Cross woman in the hospital,” Scott stated when Harry dragged his chair back to his desk. “We’ll need proof that it’s our department. Only the witnesses can give us that proof.”

“Worry about yourself, Scott, your phenomenal detail memory can come in handy here.” Ron wisely remarked, turning the radio off.

The man frowned but didn’t reply.

By evening Pansy couldn’t stand the chattering anymore, so she sealed the door with a silence spell. That’s when a paper plane flew into their cubicle and landed onto Scott’s desk.

“Looks like Weasley was right,” Scott mumbled to his colleagues, who were watching him with interest. “It’s Robards.”

“Elfshit,” Ron exclaimed in awe. “We’ll get the news firsthand after the boss!”

“Can you wait for a sec,” Pansy calmed him down. “He might wanna just tell us about poisonous pineapples in the local Aldi and send us to neutralize ‘em.”

Ron chuckled and leaned back in his chair. Scott straightened his clothes and left the room, heading to their boss’s office. Harry, who has been staring blankly at the wall the whole day, suddenly spoke up.

“I keep thinking,” two heads turned to look at him. “Why would a wizard want to eliminate muggles’ government? If that’s a wizard that is. What motives can he possibly have? Hatred? Mugglofobia? Why only politicians and rich then?”

“Remember that film we watched at Hermione’s once,” Ron slapped himself on the forehead. “About that rogue with a bow, he was killing the rich.”

“Robin Hood?”

“Yeah, him,” Ron pointed his finger at Harry, assured. “That guy might have similar motives? Decided he’s so cool and just, after watching their politicians.”

“I dunno, Ron,” Harry drawled doubtfully. “This killer didn’t take their wealth away, he only murdered them. Or tried to.”

They went silent, trying to come up with something more plausible, and then Pansy suddenly asked,

“Granger has a TV? Is she living with muggles?”

“Yeah, she rents a flat in a muggle area.” Harry nodded.

“And what’s she doing?”

“Works at a private hospital and sleeps only a couple hours per day. Why you ask?”

Pansy hesitated as if this was a private question or a question she didn’t know the answer to herself.

“It’s just really weird for me,” she confessed at last. “That after all these years you three still stick together, still friends,” she glanced at Harry, and he realized how hard this must be for her. “Somehow all I’ve got left are my fellow Gryffindor colleagues and a dog that follows me to work.”

Harry had heard a lot of gossiping here and there about how they all turned out and about. Old friends moved away to start new lives in an attempt to forget their previous ones. The ones that stayed were either sad or jealous, but there were only so few of those who were unbothered. The memories have been fresh of how Pansy’s friends left one after another, leaving only confusion and postcards twice a year. Some people didn’t leave as much as a postcard, either.

Once, Harry asked her why she decided to stay, why she hadn’t moved out after the war. She said that sometimes the roots grow so deep into the ground that transplantation would be equal to death itself. Harry thought of that phrase quite often, as he had never left the country either.

“Since…” Pansy started, closing her eyes and driving in a slow breath. “Since Malfoy Manor is abandoned, I’ve given up hope to see my old friends alive this far.”

Malfoy. Harry hasn’t heard this name in years, especially from Pansy. A while ago, back when they were still training to become Aurors, he found out from the newspapers that the massive manor owned by one of the oldest dynasties of England had been found abandoned. The reporters that tried to visit the scandalous family didn’t get any response, and those rest of their friends were worried after they had received no letters in response. Harry heard that they sent the Aurors to check on the family, but they found no one in the manor or anywhere near. Only piles of letters, unopened, and spiderwebs in empty rooms.

The conclusion was simple: after his mother’s suicide, unable to take on the punishment of his father who was rotting in Azkaban, the only heir of the Malfoy family merely ran away. Pansy didn’t take the news easily. Once Ron accidentally overheard her speaking to Jess, with whom she used to be friends during school and tearing up.

“Seriously, buddy,” Ron told Harry that day. “How could he do that to her? It’s as if we’d left Hermione and didn’t tell her anything. It’s plain spiteful.”

Harry didn’t say anything, knowing how Ron absolutely detests Draco Malfoy, but he internally agreed. It looked unfair, to one’s close ones, first of all, to just leave everything and everyone and disappear into thin air. But so many years have passed since, and it seemed as if people have forgotten about the abandoned houses of once-powerful dynasties.

Now, looking at Pansy, who was gently patting miniature Sweetheart, he could see as clear as the day: those who stayed to restore the ruins of the past were missing and mourning those whom they had had to let go.

Harry remembered that day when he saw Draco for the last time in Diagon Alley. They didn’t have a chance to meet later, however, Harry used to imagine the ways that would happen. He felt a strange urge to give Pansy a hug and tell her that he understands, that he misses them, too. He misses those things that never had a chance to happen. Their pain could not have been compared, but Harry wanted to make her feel less alone.

“Pans,” he called, and the girl looked up at him. “You do know that you’re our friend, too, don’t you? We might have been dorks at Hogwarts,” that phrase made Ron fidget nervously, “but it’s different now. You may not think so, but since we started working side by side never have I ever doubted our friendship.”

A soft sob escaped Parkinson’s mouth, and Sweetheart stood up in alarm next to her. She soothingly patted him behind the ear.

“I know that we’re not enemies, Potter,” she sighed. “It’s just hard to believe that all the Slytherins have left so cowardly, and there’s hardly anyone but me left.”

“Isn’t that what a Slytherin would do?” Ron blurted out and earned two judging gazes. “Run away without looking back?”

“No, Weasley,” Pansy hissed, annoyed. “What a Slytherin would do is stand for what you deem valuable and important and have the strength and the dignity to defend what you love through thick and thin. And if such a noble lion as you are can’t understand such things then I am simply hurt, because it turns out that nobody ever cared for me enough.”

She got back to work in angry silence. Harry thought that it’s simpler for her to show anger than vulnerability.

“Pansy,” he called cautiously. “You wanna come to Hermione with us this Sunday to watch TV?”

She smirked and shook her head.

“I do, Potter. Lo and behold, where had all the balls and fancy parties gone? I’m going to spend time with Gryffindors watching muggle garbage on TV on the weekend.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you're enjoying the story so far! If you find any mistakes please kindly tell me and I'll fix it right away uwu  
> Also go give the author love on twt @marty5art <3

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading stay tuned for the next chapter! And if you liked it follow the author on twt @marty5art you won't regret it


End file.
